Considerable Powers of Being Pleasant
by Dirac Angestun Gesept
Summary: The unpublished, unpublishable memoirs of Chan, Hero of the Fire Nation.
1. Chapter 1

_Introductory Note_

General Chan (83 AG – 162 AG), although by no means as prominent a figure as the near-mythical Wang Fire, nevertheless occupies a significant position among the recent patriotic heroes of the Fire Nation. Notably choosing to serve in the Army rather than rather than the Navy of his forebears, Chan began his career during the turbulent period surrounding the downfall of Fire Lord Ozai. In the following decades, he rose to prominence as a fearless warrior, astute diplomat and skilled haiku poet, serving the Fire Nation and the United Republic in numerous campaigns.

Most important for contemporary historians, however, has been Chan's crucial role as a 'clean' Fire Nation officer, disassociated in the popular mind from the excesses of the Ozai regime and renowned for his work with Avatar Aang in multiple reconciliation projects. This state of affairs arguably renders him a more acceptable figure for public commemoration than other military figures of the period such as Admiral Zhao or Yon Rha. Indeed, while never achieving the prominence of the aforementioned Wang Fire, in many respects Chan remains one of the Fire Nation's most significant heroes from the transitional period encompassing the end of the Hundred Year War and the establishment of the United Republic. Chan's peaceful death from natural causes at his home on Ember Island brought forth an outpouring of grief from all corners of the world, with his state funeral in the Fire Nation capital being attended by both Fire Lord Zuko and Avatar Aang along with a host of other global dignitaries.

While cataloguing and removing the considerable assemblage of artefacts, awards and other objects left behind by General Chan, municipal workmen discovered a cache of handwritten scrolls concealed inside a false-bottomed chest of Water Tribe construction. This rich collection of material, known as the Chan Archive, was purchased at auction by the present author and comprises more than fifteen separate bundles of scrolls, containing nothing less than the previously-unknown self-penned memoirs of General Chan himself.

However, as will become clear, it is apparent that even if the Chan memoirs had been known of during their author's lifetime, they could never have been published. Written irregularly in the final years of Chan's life, they present a highly embittered and deeply biased account of his experiences from which no historical figure, including even Avatar Aang himself, is allowed to emerge unscathed.

The author's harshest treatment, however, is reserved for himself – the General Chan startlingly presented to us in his own words is no hero, but instead a coward, bully, cad and thief whose fame, we learn, was built on nothing but falsehood and deception. While the spectacle of a hero attempting so thoroughly to demolish his own reputation in this way may seem unbelievable, it must be pointed out that Chan's descriptions of many historical events can be verified with reference to other sources – indeed, sometimes his uncensored eyewitness account can provide more plausible information than the official Fire Nation accounts of the period, whose reputation for politically-influenced unreliability is well-attested.

In this first selection from the Chan Archive, published with the support of a grant from the Cabbage Corp Historical Research Program, we follow Chan in his own words through the earliest stages of his military career, culminating in the events surrounding the fall of Fire Lord Ozai in which he was a close, if deeply reluctant, participant.

Goro Masanobu Furita

Republic City

169 AG


	2. Chapter 2

The first thing you should know, if you want to understand the truth of how I ended up a hero of the Fire Nation – and of the kind of hero I ended up being – is that Princess Azula burned down my family's beach house on Ember Island when I was seventeen years old. I didn't know it was her at the time, of course, and she had help – the contortionist and the gloomy girl whose names I have forgotten, if I ever knew them to begin with, threw some things about, but her brother made by far the bigger impression.

Sometimes I find it downright amusing to think that our dear, dignified Fire Lord, still clinging to the throne like grim death even as I write, is the same person who had such jolly fun destroying everything I held dear all those years ago. But then he is Fire Nation royalty, you understand, no matter how hard he tries to hide it by cosying up to the bald little monk the spirits have saddled us with for an Avatar – and ever since good old Sozin, every one of those interesting people has had a violent streak wide enough to burn a swathe across the Earth Kingdom as easily as you or I would swat an insect.

His sister certainly had it – I found that out myself when she shot blue fire out of her hands just after we kissed. Remember that I had no idea who she was at the time, and in any case I was only seventeen. While I'm still just as stupid as I was then, I certainly had far less cunning than I do now or I would have immediately recognised the signs of crazy as soon as she hove into view. Besides, I was the hottest thing on Ember Island, at least in my own estimation and possibly in Ruon-Jian's as well, and locking lips with an aristocratically pretty girl seemed like just the thing to make the party complete.

That turgid little hope ended, of course, when the fire started flying, and the next time we met it was under very different circumstances. Looking back on it after all these years, though, it strikes me that of all the lovers in my life – and there have been quite a few, let me tell you, firstly because I've always held to the view that if someone's good-looking and interested you should go for it and worry over the details later, and secondly because a hero's reputation can open a lot of bedroom doors – Azula is the only one that I've given a lot of thought to afterwards.

Sometimes just the flicker of a blue flame is enough, or the sight of lightning in the sky, and ever since that night firebenders have made me intensely nervous. A fine mental foundation for a career in the Fire Nation military, you might think, and you'd be right – I have no bending talent whatsoever, and even though those who do have that gift seem to bounce happily through all kinds of danger, I can never quite stop myself from imagining how easily I could be roasted, drowned, crushed or – well, whatever it is that airbenders do – if a passing bender had a mind to do it.

The princess clearly had a mind to cause some harm that night, anyway, when she and her friends torched the house and everything inside. On a purely material level, I didn't give a damn about any of it except my nana's vase, which Zuko saw to early on in the evening. She was a devious old creature, my grandmother, and I think she saw my cowardly streak from the moment she held me as a baby. Growing up she was the only one who spent much time with me, what with my father the Admiral being away at sea so often and my mother having died giving birth to me. I don't bring this up to try to get any sympathy, just to make it clear that a good share of the blame for how I turned out rests with my nana. She's the one who taught me how to lie, dissemble and manipulate from an early age, and may the spirits guide her soul – although they should keep a close eye on their purses while they do.

I started crying, of course, when the burning began. You would have as well. Not just the kind of manly tears that it was just about acceptable for a Fire Nation male to produce, either, but full-on blubbering like an infant, snot and all, not even really noticing as the house fell down around me. The only thought in my mind, beyond a general ice-cold, bowel-loosening terror, was that I'd get a fearful hiding from the Admiral when he got back the next day. I may not be a firebender, but my father was, and not shy about showing it off either.

All the guests ran away, of course, and even Ruon-Jian left fairly quickly. Ten years of friendship counted for about fifteen minutes in the end, but I can't blame him – I would have left much sooner. The morning sun found me just sitting there in the ashes, dirtier than the lowliest Earth peasant and twice as miserable. Someone walked up to me and asked if I needed any help, and I responded in language too strong for even me to put in writing that I was perfectly fine, thank you, and would you mind awfully just leaving me alone? It was only when she replied just as saltily – don't believe for a second that Fire Nation women are as demure and elegant as they pretend to be – that I realised she was one of the girls from the party. The one I'd handed my glass to, in fact, when Azula had marched over demanding a tour of the house. If I'd only stayed with her instead – well, there might have been a time-honoured Ember Island roll in the sand in it for me, but probably nothing else would have changed.

So I sat there and moped for a while longer, vaguely needing to piss but not in the mood to do anything about it. Eventually, I heard some tramping footsteps coming along the beach towards me, and silently watched my father's palanquin-bearers bearing my father's palanquin – as you might expect – until they stopped a few paces away from me. The Admiral pulled aside the curtain and stepped out. We looked a lot alike, he and I, except he genuinely did have a heroic bearing and a heart full of love for his country.

"I dearly hoped that what I'd been told wasn't true," he began in a calm voice, staring out at the blackened remains of his holiday home. This put me on edge even more than before, as I'd expected him to launch instantly into one of his volcanic rages and had prepared accordingly as far as I could. "But I see I have been disappointed yet again."

I mumbled something about being sorry, and he turned around quick-sharp with nothing but anger on his face. Here we go, I thought, it's been delayed but now a smack and a singe or two and things will go back to normal after he calms down. Sure enough, he started to raise up his hand, but then let it drop again.

"What would be the point?" he said, more to himself than to me, I think. "I know I haven't been the best father," he went on, sounding so utterly defeated that it genuinely scared me. What in the name of all the spirits was he planning?

"I know I wasn't there when you needed me, growing up. If I had been, perhaps... well, it doesn't matter now." He paused for a moment, and I just stared back at him, sweat trickling out from under my hair. "You have always been a disappointment to me, Chan. This, this incident," he said, gesturing to the wreckage in front of us, "this is it. No more."

He took out a scroll from his sleeve and held it for a moment, as if he was feeling the weight of it in his hand. "As I told you before, I was going to get you a naval lieutenancy at the end of this summer. But I think we both know now that you don't deserve it. There are hundreds of sailors and midshipmen under my command who would kill for an opportunity like this, and yet you've just thrown it away."

This offended my sensibilities greatly, as you might imagine, although I was clever enough even then not to say anything. The entire point of my father being an admiral, it seemed to me, was that he'd be able to get me a commission even if I was deaf, dumb and blind with no arms or legs, and to hell with all his virtuous sailors and midshipmen who hadn't the good fortune to be born into the better end of society.

"You will go into the Army instead," he announced, handing the scroll to me. "I've found you a lieutenancy in a siege artillery regiment. You will be a safe distance from the front line, and I will provide you with a generous monthly allowance which means you will never have to worry about money providing that you learn not to spend frivolously. I consider this my duty as a father."

I took the scroll from him numbly, not quite understanding it all yet. The Army? All they did was scorch Earth peasants and graffiti the walls of Ba Sing Se every ten years or so – I was destined for better things, surely. The Navy was where people of quality like me went, and everyone knew it.

"A transport ship will arrive to collect you in three days, and I've found you lodgings at the docks until then. I am glad that your mother is not here to see this, Chan."

You can bet that set me off. So that's the game, I thought, you vicious old hypocrite – finally getting revenge for what I did to you simply by being born, and getting to play the suffering martyred parent while you're at it! I wanted to hit him, of course, but that would have earned me nothing but a makeover in the Zuko style to go with my social demotion, and even in that state of agitation I knew that my good looks were about all I had going for me.

So I marched over and pissed into his still-open palanquin instead. It was a torrent fit to make a waterbending master proud, and I kept my eyes locked on his throughout, just to drive home the point. The waters having receded, I made myself decent and turned my back on him, striding off towards town as manfully as I could. I've never been entirely sure if he had tears in his eyes then, and I was never sentimental enough to speak to him again and find out. When he died a few years later with a Water Tribe pirate's spear in his back, I made sure I was too busy to attend the funeral. Everyone praised me for putting duty before family.


End file.
